Archive for April, 2011

It seems to be taking forever, but perhaps the wheels of justice will actually turn.├é┬á The Senate panel has referred their report to the Justice Department and the SEC, meaning that they’re encouraging those agencies to actually punish the now-well-documented wrong-doers.

“(Reuters) – In the most damning official U.S. report yet produced on Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis, a Senate panel accused powerhouse Goldman Sachs of misleading clients and manipulating markets, while also condemning greed, weak regulation and conflicts of interest throughout the financial system.”

“If anything, the various bailouts have actually strengthened the hands of the financial sector, increasing concentration in a small number of behemoth institutions that appear to control government policy. Meanwhile the ├óÔéČ┼ôreal├óÔéČ┬Ł economy suffers, as unemployment, poverty, and homelessness rise, but policymakers claim we cannot afford to deal with these problems. Their only hope is to gently prod Wall Street to lend more├óÔéČÔÇŁin other words, to bury the rest of the economy under even more debt. The rescue of Wall Street displaces other fiscal policy that would lead to recovery.”

The Financial Crisis Viewed from the Perspective of the ├óÔéČ┼ôSocial Costs├óÔéČ┬Ł Theory
by L. Randall Wray
Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
March 2011

“One big part of the reason we have so much inequality is that the top 1 percent want it that way. The most obvious example involves tax policy. Lowering tax rates on capital gains, which is how the rich receive a large portion of their income, has given the wealthiest Americans close to a free ride.”